Canada's PrideVision slashes staff, searches for buyer

Canadian Press reports that the Canadian gay digital TV channel PrideVision is cutting its staff in half and looking for a buyer. "The operating performance of this subsidiary has been below corporate expectations as a result of slower than anticipated growth in the number of subscribers to its service," a spokesperson for parent company Headline Media Group Inc. said Friday. Budgets have been shrinking in all departments for several months, and the layoffs are concentrated in the administrative, marketing, sales, and other nonprogramming departments. PrideVision was launched in September 2001 as the world's first 24/7 network targeted specifically at the gay and lesbian community. Headline Media Group says it is taking "aggressive efforts" to improve the network's financial picture and that it "continues to have discussions with third parties regarding potential strategic investments in or the sale of PrideVision."